Includes bibliographical references (p. 305-330) and index

In this entertaining and informative book, journalist and political commentator Steven Stark takes us on a guided tour of the tube, and charts with unique wit and intelligence how America came of age, so to speak, in a box - watching everything from I Love Lucy, All in the Family, The Brady Bunch, and Saturday Night Live, to the CBS Evening News, Roots, MTV, and ER. Glued to the set asks the simple question - What has TV done to us? - and answers it with startling revelations about the power of its sixty most important shows and events. From Beaver to Roseanne, from Ed Sullivan to Oprah, from the blanket coverage of the early space program to the hearings for Watergate and the Clarence Thomas nomination, television has done more than simply record history and echo our culture. It has made us who we are, and Steven Stark has managed to catch in bright focus this hilarious, strange, and thrilling image of ourselves

1. What's So Funny About Milton Berle? The Unacceptable Ethnicity of The Texaco Star Theater -- 2. Howdy Doody and the Debate Over Children's Programming -- 3. Meet the Press: Television's Anachronism -- 4. I Love Lucy: The Woman as TV Superstar -- 5. Dragnet and the Policeman as Hero -- 6. Bishop Sheen's Life Is Worth Living and the New American Religion of Television -- 7. Resistance to Reality: Why Edward R. Murrow's See It Now Didn't Change Television More -- 8. Today, Barbara Walters, and TV's Definition of News -- 9. Disneyland and the Creation of the Seamless Entertainment Web -- 10. The Secret of The Lawrence Welk Show -- 11. The Ed Sullivan Show and the Era of Big Government -- 12. Gunsmoke and Television's Lost Wave of Westerns -- 13. American Bandstand and the Clash of Rock and TV -- 14. Twenty-One, the Quiz Scandal, and the Decline of Public Trust -- 15. Leave It to Beaver and the Politics of Nostalgia -- 16. The Twilight Zone: Science Fiction as Realism -- 17. The Rise and Fall of the Televised Presidential Press Conference -- 18. Perry Mason and the Criminal Lawyer as Brief Television Hero -- 19. The Dick Van Dyke Show and the Rise of Upscale Television -- 20. Space Television -- 21. The Beverly Hillbillies and the Rise of Populist Television -- 22. Assassination Television -- 23. Mister Ed: How Real Were TV's Escapist Comedies? -- 24. The Dating Game, Game Shows, and the Rise of Tabloid TV -- 25. Walter Cronkite, the CBS Evening News, and the Rise of News on Television -- 26. The Monkees and TV's Subversion of the 1960s -- 27. Mission: Impossible and Its Cold War Fight to Save America -- 28. The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and the Fate of Controversy on TV -- 29. Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and Acceleration as a TV Style -- 30. Sesame Street: The Last Remnant of the Counterculture -- 31. TV's Biggest Show: The Super Bowl -- 32. The Brady Bunch as Television Icon -- 33. All in the Family and the Sitcom "Revolution" -- 34. The Mary Tyler Moore Show and America's Newest "Families" -- 35. Masterpiece Theatre and the Failure of PBS -- 36. Television's Biggest Scandal: The Local News -- 37. The Tonight Show and Its Hold on America -- 38. 60 Minutes and the Evolution of News to Entertainment -- 39. TV's Most Self-Congratulatory Hit: Saturday Night Live -- 40. The Miniseries as History: Did Roots Change America? -- 41. All My Children, Soaps, and the Feminization of America -- 42. The Oddly Winning Dark Sensibility of M*A*S*H -- 43. The Hostage Crisis as Metaphor -- 44. Dallas and the Rise of Republican Mythology -- 45. Debating Our Politics: The Ronald Reagan Show -- 46. CNN and the Changing Definition of News -- 47. Hill Street Blues and TV's New Elite Style -- 48. What MTV Hath Wrought -- 49. Bob Newhart as the Embodiment of TV Culture -- 50. Entertainment Tonight and the Expansion of the Tabloid, Celebrity Culture -- 51. The Forgotten Promise of The Cosby Show -- 52. The Star Trek Galaxy and Its Glimpse of TV's Future -- 53. How Roseanne Made Trash TV Respectable -- 54. How America's Funniest Home Videos Tore Down Our Wall -- 55. Hill-Thomas and the Congressional Hearing as Miniseries -- 56. The Oprah Winfrey Show and the Talk-Show Furor -- 57. A Tale of Two Sitcoms -- 58. Home Shopping: Commercialism as Salvation -- 59. The Innovations of ER and the Fight for Health-Care Reform -- 60. How Wheel of Fortune Won the Cold War -- App. How I Came Up With the 60 Shows

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